The stadium is used mostly for football matches, hosting the home matches of S.L. Benfica. It is also called A Catedral (The Cathedral) by Benfica supporters.

It was opened on 25 October 2003 with an exhibition match between Benfica and Nacional of Montevideo. The previous Estádio da Luz with 120,000 seats was demolished in 2003, and the new stadium was built with a maximum capacity of 65,647 (64,642 in Primeira Liga matches). HOK Sport Venue Event (now Populous) designed the stadium to use as much natural light as possible.

The old stadium was named in honour of the Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Luz (Church of Our Lady of the Light), and the people of Lisbon used to call it a Luz ("the Light"), so the common name for the stadium became Estádio da Luz, which is usually translated to English as "Stadium of Light".

The architect Damon Lavelle designed the stadium to focus on light and transparency, offering an incentive to name the stadium "Estádio da Luz" as the original stadium had the same name. The polycarbonate roof of the stadium allows the rays of sunlight to penetrate it, lighting the stadium. The roof, which is supported by tie-beams of four steel arches, seems to float on the underlying tribunes. The arches measure 43 metres in height and help to define the look of the stadium after having been shaped to be similar to the wavy profile of the three tiers of the stadium.

With the new stadium, Benfica became more confident. In 2003–04 season, Benfica conquered the Taça de Portugal after beating Porto in the final, 2–1. In the 2004–05 season, the Estádio da Luz was the venue for a 1–0 victory over Sporting, before a 1–1 draw away against Boavista which sealed the championship. Following the final whistle, thousands of fans joined the stadium to celebrate the 31st championship. In 2009–10, Benfica defeated Porto 1–0, an important victory to win their 32nd championship. On 20 April 2014, Benfica conquered their 33rd championship after defeating Olhanense 2–0 at home. Benfica has also qualified for two Europa League finals whilst playing at the new stadium.[4][5]

The stadium reached up to 11 million spectators on its tenth birthday.[6] It reached the 12 million spectators mark on 17 August 2014.[7]

In the first quarter-final between England and Portugal, the English opened the scoring after only two minutes through Michael Owen. Portugal's constant attacking pressure from then on resulted in Hélder Postiga's 83rd minute equaliser. A controversial incident came in the dying minutes when Michael Owen hit the Portuguese crossbar, resulting in a Sol Campbell header, which appeared to have given England the lead again, but his header was ruled out for what the referee Urs Meier deemed a foul on the Portuguese goalkeeper Ricardo Pereira. The sides exchanged goals in extra-time, sending the match to penalty kicks and Portugal won 6–5; Portugal's goalkeeper Ricardo saved a penalty from Darius Vassell and then scored the winning goal.